The present invention relates to a dentifrice comprising a cationic antibacterial agent useful in the prophylaxis and/or treatment of periodontal disease, calculus and caries and selected abrasives. A new thickening agent comprising a soluble alkali metal pyrophosphate and a calcium salt is also disclosed.
The use of antibacterial agents, including cationic antibacterial agents, in oral hygiene compositions has been widely advocated as a means of reducing the bacterial plaque population and this may be beneficial in the treatment of periodontal disease, calculus and/or caries.
While mouthwashes containing cationic antibacterial agents are available, these suffer the disadvantage that the cationic antibacterial agents tend to leave a brown stain due to interaction of the agents with plaque. Such a drawback may be, in principle, minimized by using the antibacterial agent in a dentifrice, so that the abrasive included therein removes the stained plaque. In practice however there are found to be severe problems in providing a useful formulation because of the intrinsic incompatibility of the cationic antibacterial agents with many of the other conventional elements of a dentifrice formulation, which incompatibility drastically reduces the bio-availability of the cationic agent. In addition, the cationic antibacterial agents often have a bitter taste which needs to be masked to provide a product which is acceptable to the consumer.
It has now been discovered that the problem of bio-availability may be overcome or at least mitigated by the use of certain abrasives in combination with cationic antibacterial agents in dentifrices. Also, the thickening agents based on a pyrophosphate and a calcium salt make it possible to eliminate all or essentially all of certain thickening agents such as non-abrasive silica gels which may reduce CPC availability.